Kamchatka

Kamchatka is a peninsula located in eastern Russia, bordering the Pacific Ocean to the east. The peninsula has a population of 322,079 people, with over half of the population living in the cities of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and Yelizovo. The region was explored from 1695 to 1699, and Petropavlovsk was founded in 1740. From 1945 to 1989, Kamchatka was designated a military area and closed to Soviet citizens, as it was the location of a rocket site used against Japan during World War II. Today, Petropavlovsk is an important naval base for the Russian Navy in the Russian Far East, although not as important as Vladivostok.